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OK so having been up since 6am (again!), skyped, planned my lesson and stolen the photo for this entry off Sarah I finally have a bit of time to blog!
For anyone who's reading and doesnt know, firstly Emma and Sarah are my flatmates. They arrived in Xi'an the day before I did and are doing the same internship too, so we're all in the same boat which is nice. Sarah has a really good blog with photos on too if nyone wants to see- sarahlivesinchina.wordpress.com - so have a look :).
Hopefully by the end of the week i will have put some photos up on here too but for now its just an entry.
Well, it's taken nearly 3 weeks but I'm startin to feel a bit more like a resident here now. There's still reminders that we're completely different (espesh being blonde) when someone blatantly stares or asks us for our picture (!), but now havin explored more of the city (although im sure only the tip of the iceberg), found a good bar and got into the rhythm of things a bit more, i dont feel anythin like when i first got here and thought id landed in the ghetto!
I dont think i'll ever get used to the squatting toilets that are basically jsut holes in the ground and by god i would never drive in china- although im not closin my eyes and prayin everytime a taxi takes over someone now haha.
It's been a very busy 3 weeks and its absolutely flown by- im so lookin forward to a lie in tomorow! The school is situated about 25 mins away from where we live, which is like a little apartment complex where quite a few of the teachers at the school live. Theres a variety of language teachers at the school including chinese, german, french, italian, spanish, russiana nd obviously english.
We've got to know a few more of the teachers and people now including students at the school. Loads of them are actually there long term studyin mandarin, mostly about 5 hours a day up to like a year. We've also been doing about 8 hours a week ourselves learnin the basics, but hopefully by the end of 3 months i'll be able to ahve an intelligent convo with someone without them laughin at me! We hvae been tryin with the locals too but they seem to be stubbornly resistin our attempts to try and talk to them- even when we only use one word they look at use as if we've got 3 heads. We have to resort to the phrase book then which is very frustratin espesh when they repeat the word in the exact same way we said it!
We have had a few epxeriences of some basic translators in restaurants too which is helpful but they can be a bit too friendly.
Food's really good over here- dead spicy. There's veggie stuff everywhere, but im steerin away from any fish while im here, espesh after i saw fried fish that you could eat whole with the head and little teeth still left on! They really know their aubergines here. Hopefully I'll get chance to do a cookin class before i leave.
We havent had much time to do much up to yet, as we havent had a day since last saturday, but we finally have a day to go and see the terracotta warriors on saturday, so we're all lookin forward to that.
Not that I'm not enjoyin being here, but there is a lot of disorganization. China seems to work in the way that they ring you either the night or a couple of hours before you have to do somethin but they dont the details about the thing you have to do. It's taken a bit of gettin used to!
We're also teachin a lot of kids at the mo. We go into a primary school 3 times a week and teach 6 classes with 60 kids in each class. We also have to teach at a kindergarten for nearly 3 hours a week with kids from 3-6. It's very dauntin and i'll be honest in sayin i dont like teachin kids this young. I did have a little meltdown about it but we are doin our best and after some good advice fom Emma tryin to be positive about it! I also have an adult class twice a week too which is niceand i think as time goes on we'll get more and more classes. (hopefull not with loads of kids though!).
They're also havin a big horticultural exhibition here soon and IH is the sponsor, so theres been a lot of work goin on for that. Most teachers at the school have been roped into translation and proofreadin for lots of documents and information for it and for the tourists comin. It's been a bit of a slog but we get free passes to it, so it'll be really nice to see what we've been helpin to work on.
Ok, i think thats mostly it so far for all the basics! I will try and blog regularly to update whats goin on and will try and put some photos up, particularly after the terracotta army and tell you more about the city and things that we're doin and seein.
All in all, although it's been a busy 3 weeks with a lot of things to get used to, im really enjoyin bein here now. Emma and Sarah are great, the people are friendly and so helpful, the city seems to be really nice and im lookin forward to all the stuff we're goin be seein and doin both at work and out of it.
More to come soon
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